Dr Amy Dickman

Research Fellows

Kaplan Senior Research Fellow in Felid Conservation, Pembroke College

I first joined WildCRU in 1997 after completing a B.Sc. degree in Zoology from the University of Liverpool. Through WildCRU, I worked for 5 years with Laurie Marker at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia, investigating cheetah and leopard ecology, as well as methods of mitigating human-cheetah conflict. I then completed an M.Sc. at the University of Oxford, investigating the determinants of human-carnivore conflict in Tanzania; work that I developed further for my Ph.D. from UCL. I rejoined WildCRU in 2009 and established its Ruaha Carnivore Project, which aims to research large carnivore ecology and reduce human-carnivore conflict around Tanzania’s Ruaha landscape. This vast wilderness of over 50,000km2 is centred around Ruaha National Park, which is the largest Park in East Africa and one of the most significant remaining landscapes for lions, cheetahs, African wild dogs and other threatened carnivores. However, the area has been extremely understudied, and WildCRU’s Ruaha Carnivore Project is the only project focused on carnivore research and conservation in this critically important area.

I run a team of over 50 people (almost all Tanzanians), and we conduct ecological research into large carnivores across the Ruaha landscape, and develop and implement cutting-edge conflict mitigation strategies. We were the first project to trial the use of specialised Anatolian Shepherd livestock guarding dogs in East Africa, and we use a variety of approaches to reduce carnivore attacks and provide community benefits from the presence of carnivores and other wildlife. The Ruaha area used to have an extremely high rate of lion killing, but we have seen a significant decline in both carnivore attacks and retaliatory killings in the core study area, so are now focused on continuing and expanding our work.

I am a member of the African Lion Working Group, the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, a founding member of the Pride Lion Conservation Alliance, a National Geographic Explorer and have published over 45 articles and book chapters on large carnivore conservation. I helped create the Global Cheetah Action Plan, the Regional Conservation Strategies for cheetahs and African wild dogs in Eastern and Southern Africa, and National Action Plans for cheetahs and other carnivores in Kenya, Tanzania and Southern Sudan. I was fortunate enough to be awarded the 2011 Rabinowitz-Kaplan Award for the Next Generation in Wild Cat Conservation, and be a finalist for the 2014 Tusk Conservation Award – a brief overview of the project made for the Tusk Award can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAxx8dAIrCU